OwnerRez tells hosts to leave their settings alone until its Airbnb changes land

Airbnb's new house rules and guest requests policy applies to reservations booked on or after 20 November. OwnerRez emailed its customers on 22 October with a short message that is mostly reassurance, but two things in it are worth acting on.

The first is an instruction to do nothing yet. "There's no need to rush into making changes to your OwnerRez configuration," the company says, because the policy only covers bookings made from 20 November onwards. Anything booked before then keeps the rules that were on the listing at the time.

The second is the useful part. OwnerRez says the updates it is building include "changes to how rental agreements and security deposits are handled for Airbnb reservations", and that they will be in place well ahead of the deadline. A guide explaining what changes and what you may need to do is due within days, held back until the product changes ship so the instructions match what is actually on screen.

Why agreements and deposits

Those two were always going to be the pressure points.

Airbnb's policy restricts separate rental agreements to specific cases: where the law requires one, where a homeowners association requires one, stays of 28 nights or more, Luxe listings, and optional extras such as a golf buggy. Airbnb also says plainly that it will not help enforce a host's contract or require a guest to sign one.

Guest data is tighter still. By default a host cannot collect contact details, ID documents or photos, financial details, background checks, or biometric and health data. That cuts across how a lot of damage deposit and verification flows have been built.

If you run OwnerRez's rental agreement step and a security deposit hold on Airbnb bookings today, both sit inside that. The question is not whether your setup changes. It is whether it changes on its own or whether you have to go and change it, and that is what the guide should answer.

What OwnerRez is not promising

The email covers OwnerRez's side of the line, which is the right scope for it. It does not cover yours.

The parts of the policy no property management system can fix are the operational ones. Guests cannot be required to wash and put away dishes, strip beds or carry rubbish off the property, and rules sent by message or stuck on the fridge carry no weight at all. A software update does not change what your cleaners walk into on a Tuesday morning. If any part of your turnover plan quietly depends on a guest doing something, that is worth looking at this week rather than waiting.

For OwnerRez users the sensible order is simple. Read the guide when it lands, work out which of your Airbnb listings use a rental agreement or a deposit hold, and leave the configuration alone until then. There is nothing to gain from changing it twice.